LOL, another celebrity Christian professor with his own agenda, books to sell, and an axe to grind who's fallacious arguments are non-existent and solely based off his own hatred of anything that contradicts his faith-based worldview. Two can play that game, my friend.

LOL, another celebrity Christian professor with his own agenda, books to sell, and an axe to grind who's fallacious arguments are non-existent and solely based off his own hatred of anything that contradicts his faith-based worldview. Two can play that game, my friend.

That is what I thought when I read Pilgrim's post. In addition to what you have stated the idea that stating that Ehrman was "refuted" has all the disingenuous finality that a JREFer uses when they say that 9/11 alternative views have been "debunked:"

who's fallacious arguments have been refuted.

By the way I have Ehrman's book and would love to read it but I am studying French right now and am reading only in that language.

LOL, another celebrity Christian professor with his own agenda, books to sell, and an axe to grind who's fallacious arguments are non-existent and solely based off his own hatred of anything that contradicts his faith-based worldview. Two can play that game, my friend.

LOL, another celebrity Christian professor with his own agenda, books to sell, and an axe to grind who's fallacious arguments are non-existent and solely based off his own hatred of anything that contradicts his faith-based worldview. Two can play that game, my friend.

Please be reasonable, you posted a book that you thought would prove the NT to be false, i posted a book that refutes your book and highlights it logical errors and fallacies in a like manner which you have failed to address. At this stage, neither of us has presented any evidence other than pit book against book as I only answered a fool by his own logic. Your "Two can play at that game" argument fails as there many other sources that show the same false assertions, old hat fallacious arguments that have been refuted time and time again and logical fallacies in Erhman's books by other people who will not be million selling authors such as : http://www.tektonics.org/ezine/ijindex.html. I won't gain a penny either. If you would like a more detailed debate on the issue then lets agree to stop appealing to books and other web sites and present your arguments and show how your premises are true and lead to a necessary true conclusion by deductive logic and show the presuppositions you assume to be true to base your principles upon. Good luck with that as you would be first person to prove Christianity to be false and your own presuppositions to be totally true to base your objections upon. If you can't do that at least write out Ehrman's argument or objection without expecting us to read through pages of psycho babble and opinion otherwise, which i will refute through deductive logic and reason. What does Ehrman think about Media Fakery?Surley such a clever Professor who has the skill to "debunk" the NT based on such poor logic can see through the far more obvious deceptions in the the world which even the Bible acknowledges. (though i admit most so-called Christians don't see this too) He is wrong about far more obvious things but correct on historical religion is he? Why? Please show us with some non fallacious evidence and appeals to secular agenda driven authority. It seems you are totally naive to way the School and College Education System has been hijacked to promote the secular and Moronic atheist narrative agenda from people like Dawkins and Ehrman as shown by the video "No Intelligence Allowed" Please don't tell me you have fallen for the their biggest hoax out yet EVOLUTION?........ by these same secular agenda driven clowns based on the fallacies of scientific induction and affirming the consequent.You think they are on your side? ROTFL.

Okay, you could stand to copy edit a bit, but your point is made Pilgrim. The ball is in their court. You're right that everyone should appreciate real arguments rather than mere book links when truly doing any reasoning rather than regurgitating. But also, to be fair, please double check spelling and grammar so you don't repeat (repeat) words, you do punctuate properly, and things like that. Thanks.

Herose » September 4th, 2017, 1:45 pm wrote:…a Middle-Eastern man who (all but) declared to be God incarnate [...] if you believe that conspiracy, you join Him in Heaven after you die. If you don’t, you won’t.

You seem to be saying that the Incarnation makes Christianity the only valid/true religion and means of salvation. Or is there a Heaven without Jesus for other upayas?

The three major branches of Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical) agree on your sola fide criteria for salvation (belief that Jesus was a real person, that He was God, that He performed miracles, that He was executed, that He died for our sins, that He rose again, and that He ascended to Heaven). Does that make all three branches equally valid means of salvation? The representatives of each branch do not seem to think so.

Wow, I am stunned this thread has been ongoing for several years, and even more stunned that it hasn't been locked given that I earlier had a post that was quickly locked. Either way, I was almost hesitant to mention that, as it seems to be a thread with potential significance.

I just wanted to mention a few ideas - truly "musings", though I am sure my post will be deleted.

So I agree with the earlier post where it was said that excising the work of a well-laid psy-op is actually a painful process, and the more the psy-op has touched into our emotions, the greater the difficulty. I also really enjoy the perspective that a person could be almost incapable of doing so, kind of, to some degree, as an insane person would be incapable of fully considering themselves insane (potentially?). That said I cannot say with absolute certainty that I am infallibly correct to be Christian, but I can easily say that if it was a psy-op, I cannot imagine how it could possibly be reversed, anymore than the "mark of the beast" theoretically could be reversed. The reason being - for most Christians, or at least for me, there seems to be an in-born desire for a Creator, a desire for a better, purer world, a desire to be led by a magnificent powerful, loving being; therefore to take a Christian, or even a theist - from that place where this need seems to naturally arise even in childhood, to the less spiritually fulfilling place that modern science would have us be at (atheism) - is probably impossible without wholesale crushing that person's sense of hope. I really thought the comments about how psy-ops that mean nothing to us like 9/11 are easily discarded when found to be untrue, but real psy-ops involve horrible pain - that was kind of a genius statement to me. So I do not pretend I am capable of this nor desire it for myself.

But, entertaining the thought that Christianity could be a psy-op, there could be many layers to this. As some have noted, materialistic principles that are often equated with Satanism in that they are completely antithetical to the highest values described in the Bible - appear to be flagrantly pushed in the media. So much so one could easily come to one of two conclusions; there really is a Satan, fully controlling the world, and desiring to lead people astray, using media and negative world events to either crush or distract people into capitulating their faith and hope, or, conversely, there is a faked Satanic agenda, for the purposes of inspiring fear and driving people ever harder back to the faith that apparently needs such bolstering to keep people motivated/docile enough to continue in it. Obviously, I'm Christian so, I cannot really consider on any meaningful level the latter - but, intellectually I see that it is a sad possibility. Expounding on it - it could be the reason that Christians are so often publicly derided or otherwise censored on online forums, and in the world in general - to elicit a protective response to cling ever more to a faith they were originally uncertain about. The atheists, in this case, would actually be undercover Christians, perhaps of the higher echelons, purposefully modeling nihilism, or egotism, or whatever would probably instinctively horrify a Christian and cause them to "run for cover" so to speak. Obviously for this reason other theistic religions would have to be destroyed as options, to concentrate the power - assuming power were the aim of this agenda. Perhaps even whole events like 9/11 would be staged, so as to weaken the public trust in their governments, and social dissent fomented, until the moral landscape, in media and without, looked so bad people would radically shift to the other extreme of the pendulum, embracing "hard-core", totalitarian even Christianity. I guess if one wanted to push Christianity for power, it would be no difficult thing to excise the more peaceful parts of the Bible out, and leave the statements most amenable to a theocracy in there. Sometimes, when I listen to Christian songs - the most recent ones - and it talks about being soldiers on our knees, and encouraging humans to public-ally self deprecate, and public-ally pray, and to wage wars of hate, mental or otherwise, I think - perhaps some sociopaths could be motivated to do so. After all I did visit Europe and saw the monetary corruption of some churches there, not that US churches are immune. There certainly doesn't seem to be much modern adherence to the more ascetic, flesh-denying aspects of the original faith, and the great benevolence that is supposed to most characterize a Christian.

However, I don't believe this to be a "double psy-ops". I partially do in terms of - the latest videos featuring end times and raptures and I think even the whole alien invasion and the whole "boycott these Satanic symbols and the media." I am not sure. I do just to be sure but, I feel like they actually drag more attention back to the original media they are espousing people boycott, back to the original culture even more - so, it is very possible they are running on the flip-side of those who wish to profit from running churches, along with those indoctrinated into the belief that they are doing good by helping people in this fashion. It's a definite possibility.

But, there's also the "psy-ops" so to speak that, as Christians, we are taught that Satan was the first "liar" and that he operates through deception, the greatest one being that he doesn't exist. Where is there to go rationally from there? With one's soul's destiny in the mix? So if one were hypothetically Satan, it would be most "rational" as far as one can imagine such things, or hopefully discern from prophecy, that one would want to actively deceive the world and establish exactly the kind of morally degenerate lie-filled world that some Christians will say exists today.

A lot of people may say "well, if you're going to die anyway, why risk being on the 'wrong-side' even if you can't subjectively tell the truth? Just basically guess and if you're right you'll be with God and won't that be great?". But Pascal's wager doesn't really apply. I think that's one of the greatest disservices to Christianity, and I saw another poster even implied that "those who reject God will do so after Christ return, to his face" - sorry, paraphrasing. I don't think this is quite Biblical at all. Yahusha's return is said to be "like a thief in the night" and only those found "doing the Father's commandments" (sorry, I don't know the exact words here but, you probably know it well enough). I would imagine, at the very least, this would imply having faith beforehand, when one "cannot see", and the worst, being "perfect as Yahushua is perfect" - which I understand to mean trying one's best every single moment and constantly praying and repenting for the "failures" - which we are told basically everyone has "no man is righteous". There's quite a few lines in there indicating that sanctification is a process, and experience seems to bear this out as even calling out with all one's soul for salvation - well it hopefully effects it but, one continues to live after that point, and it would seem more rational that that alone, if it were purely 100% faith based without any subsequent need for action - would suddenly funnel one up to heaven but...it does not at least visually appear to do so, so...there must be some kind of testing or further expectation after that point. I hardly see the need for the Bible at all if after Christ returned and the day of judgement was about to start, if one could suddenly be like "oh, God, there you are, I've been cursing you out and killing people all my life but now I'm sorry, now that I see you standing here." I mean there is the story of the prodigal son so there's some hope but...even that has ominous overtones about before the day is done, and time is up, etc. Certainly hopefully before one dies in case none of the modern rapture theories happen in a person's lifetime (perhaps another psy-op to distract from the fact that it won't happen soon at all?) I don't know. It might happen soon. But if it does happen soon, I think there's a distinct possibility that there might be some tribulation for Christians as well, and I don't know if the whole fear-mongering part about Christians getting beheaded under persecution is another Satanic permutation to inspire unnecessary fear and drive the weak away - but, it could just be stating a fact - it might actually require tons of specific-to-this-life suffering. Does that make sense to me - not exactly but, I have to admit if one were to compare my faith with that of Isaac who was just about willing to sacrifice his son, I can admit that perhaps my faith needs more perfecting.

Anyway, if the whole reverse Satanism thing is a psy-op, I have to say it is a hugely pervasive one. I would imagine the Church would be wasting more money on it than they could possibly be making back, especially as it seems to be so ineffective at changing most people's thoughts (I don't see a preponderance of Christians coming to Christianity because of these "scare" tactics"). For example, I saw a website that extensively defined sorcery as everything from Harry Potter to candles, incense, card games, dragons, dinosaurs, witch-anything, stars, pentagons, hexagons, circle in circles...etc. etc. it was tons of things everything from sideways stars to concentric circles to heart symbols, etc. Everything can be demonified. Literally this stuff can drive you crazy. I'm not just talking about turning off the TV - because after watching enough of these things, you start to see this stuff everywhere - I'm basically saying on every consumer item or everywhere modern producers make their mark, you're going to see probably on 80% things something that could be construed as falling under sorcery (aside from actual pharmika like medical drugs and psychedelics). I've often wondered if the actual purpose of this if it is a psy-op is to literally drive people to insanity or cripple their ability to make purchases or relax. But anyway, if it is legitimate, it is hardly working to turn people off to Satanism and drive them back into the church (apart from possibly a few people like myself), because most people happily paste the supposedly Satanic logos, merchandise, and consumerist/materialistic paraphernalia all over themselves and their kids. So how can this be the case to flood the market waiting for a reverse reaction. Makes you think perhaps it's a legitimate argument after all.

Anyway, I would really love to hear from the other Christian people on here. I want to know your thoughts. PMs would be welcome. I hope this doesn't get deleted. I believe in Christ but it's purely a matter of faith; I don't think there's any way to prove a historical text, I choose to because of it's great beauty and how strongly this concept of God resonates with everything in me.

By the way that Age of Deceit thing is terrifying. I really dislike the concept of extreme suffering as the only way to prove faith. It's possibly true, and I guess I would have to pray for the strength to endure it but, I find it fills my whole body with tension and terror and I have to spend quite a bit of time reflecting on the loving and merciful nature of God to clear thoughts of being burned at the stake. I'm not entirely sure terror-filled videos like that are actually meant to encourage Christians, who, let's face it - like all people - don't desire to maximize their pain. Is that cowardice? I don't know...just...I'm not sure why we always have to go there...